


when my baby wears a dress

by businessboyjared



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fluff, M/M, richie wears a dress and eddie loves it and that's it!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23132917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/businessboyjared/pseuds/businessboyjared
Summary: He’s temporarily blinded again by all the flashing lights, and while he gets his bearings he hears the faceless photographers start to yell his name.Richie! Richie, over here! You look gorgeous, give us a pose!Richie glances over at Eddie, who mouths back pose! with a little wink. He has no fucking idea what he’s doing, tries to rack his brain for any red carpet pictures he’s seen in his life but of course his brain comes up empty.fully inspired bythis art of richie in a dressby jam on twitter@downtoclowntown!
Relationships: Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 23
Kudos: 93





	when my baby wears a dress

**Author's Note:**

> OK this was completely 100% inspired by [ this gorgeous art of richie in a dress](https://twitter.com/downtoclowntown/status/1237569768858607617) by jam on twitter [@downtoclowntown](https://twitter.com/downtoclowntown)! so go look at it first and then follow her and love her art as much as i do!!!!!!!! seriously i just had that drawing open in one window while i had word open in another and it added like 10 years to my life. sooooo enjoy this completely self indulgent thing! 
> 
> fic title from lisa baby by walk the moon :-)

Richie stands in the middle of Beverly’s living room in just his boxer briefs while she circles him with a tape measure and notepad. He’s getting sort of restless. It feels like they’ve been at this for hours, but he tries his best to be patient for her. Plus, he knows Bev is not afraid to pinch him if he fidgets too much.  
  
Beverly steps back to look at him from head to toe, over the top of her little reading glasses. They look like they’re in danger of sliding off the tip of her nose at any moment, and maybe they have one too many times in the past, considering they’re also attached to a delicate gold chain hanging around her neck. Richie looks at her. It’s clear she is deep in concentration, thinking about a million things at once while her eyes dart from Richie’s shoulders to his hips and down his legs. She looks like a really beautiful witch or something, the way she’s muttering things to herself and sketching something down in a larger drawing pad at her desk.  
  
“You look like a witch,” Richie says.  
  
Bev giggles and looks up to wink at him. “I am definitely going to work my magic on you for this. You can sit down now, by the way.” She nods at a nearby chair but Richie just plops down on the floor, crisscross applesauce style. Bev sketches some more, and Richie loves the way she hums to herself while she draws. She pauses to inspect her work so far, and says, “You’ve got a great chest and shoulders. I really want to make sure to highlight that. And your arms are _killer_ , Rich, seriously.”  
  
Richie feels his face warm up at the compliment. “Jeez, Bev, hit on me harder. Should Eddie be worried?”  
  
“Absolutely he should, but only because I’m gonna make sure you look sexy as hell.” Richie laughs and pumps his fist at that, until Bev takes her glasses off and looks at him very seriously. “Richie. I will only tell you this once. _No_ sex in this dress. I can make you another one for sex purposes if you want, but _this_ —” She gestures to her sketchpad. “—This is _not_ a sexing dress, do you hear me?”   
  
Richie throws his head back in a groan. “Ugh, _fine_!”  
  
Bev laughs heartily and goes back to her sketching. “Do you think you’ll wanna shave for this?”  
  
“Like my legs or my face?”  
  
“Both,” She shrugs.  
  
Richie’s glad she’s not paying any attention to his reaction, because he suddenly feels unable to keep his eyes focused on anything but the floor. His fingers play with a strand of leg hair on his calf. He knows Bev isn’t trying to pressure him into it. The dress and makeup are all fine and good with him, and he’s excited to see how he looks. Shaving his legs feels just a touch out of his depth. For now, anyway.  
  
“Umm,” He clears his throat. “No, I don’t think I want to shave.” He’s worried for a second that Beverly will tell him he _has_ to, that it’ll ruin her concept, that he’ll look too much like sasquatch in a dress if he doesn’t. Instead, she just nods and says, “No problem.” And Richie feels his shoulders deflate a bit in relief.  
  
“Okay, now this is the most important question. What color do you want this to be?”  
  
Richie purses his lips and tries to think hard about it. He doesn’t really have a _favorite_ color. He likes all of them, and usually wears several at a time just for the hell of it. He can’t even think of a particular color that he thinks he might look best in. There’s nothing that really stands out in his mind, so he shrugs at Bev. “I don’t even know, dude. You can pick whatever you think is best.”  
  
Bev puts her pencil down and gives Richie an intense but serene look, like she knows something about him that he doesn’t. A look that would have terrified him as a kid, and is now only sort of unnerving.   
  
“I think… I think that ever since your special—”   
  
The emphasis placed on _special_ makes him squirm a little, which doesn’t make sense considering it’s the whole reason Richie’s playing ken doll for the afternoon. The way Bev says _special_ , he knows she means _coming out_ , which… yeah. His newest stand-up special was about him coming out. And how he makes “your dad” jokes now, and how everything is peachy fucking keen now that he’s got a hot boyfriend he’s been in love with since grade school. It’s the special that got him invited to the GLAAD Awards, which led to Richie asking Bev to design his red carpet look. All of this within two months, tops. What a new, gay world he’s been living in! It’s been an adjustment for him, to say the least.   
  
“Ever since your special, you’ve been very…” Bev’s lips push together in thought. “Yellow. Maybe a bit of orange, even?”  
  
“Oh?” Richie’s a little surprised by that. He kind of wishes Bev had just made a joke about wrapping him in a rainbow flag and nothing else. It’s low-hanging fruit, sure, but—yellow? Really?  
  
Bev returns to her sketch, erasing and adding things here and there. “Yeah, you’re just like, bright. But bright like a… like a desert sunset or a really warm fireplace or something. You’ve always been _warm_ , but now it’s like you’re burning. Does that make sense?” She smiles at Richie, who still looks confused. “It’s a good thing, Richie. It’s a good look on you.”  
  
Richie just nods and says thanks while he lets her words soak in. She’s not wrong, anyway. It’s kind of exactly how he feels lately, but more specifically when it comes to Eddie. When they hold hands on their way to get lunch, or when Eddie comes home from work and gives him a kiss before he even takes his shoes off. Falling asleep on the couch together. Catching his eye from across the room and knowing what he’s thinking. All of it makes him feel like he’s hurtling towards the sun, or maybe that the sun has replaced his own heart and now lies left of center in his chest, just burning burning burning holes through him until it leaks out in fragments like a disco ball or a star about to explode.   
  
He tries to surreptitiously wipe at his eyes. He got choked up there for a second just thinking about Eddie, because of course he did. Then he thinks about whatever yellow and orange masterpiece Bev will put him in, and Eddie’s reaction to said masterpiece, and he feels a stupid grin start to pull at his cheeks.   
  
Bev observes his little face journey from across the room and puts her pencil down. “Go home and kiss your boyfriend, you dummy. I’m done with your body for now.”   
  
Richie laughs and puts his clothes back on, then hugs her tightly. He doesn’t even know how to thank her—for the dress she’s making just for him, for her friendship, for everything.   
  
  
\---

It's three weeks later, and Richie struggles to remind himself of how grateful he is to Bev when it seems like she’s actively trying to poke his eyes out with a mascara wand.   
  
“Richie, you’re doing so well. But if you flinch one more time I’ll fucking hurt you,” She says so patiently that it kind of terrifies him, and he wishes Eddie were here to yell at him the way he does when he’s not actually mad at all.  
  
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” He focuses all of his nervous energy into staying still, and when Bev finally moves away from him with a satisfied grin, he lets out the giant breath he’d been holding. Then she tells him to stand and put his arms up so she can get the dress on him, and Richie does what he’s told, and he’s so fucking anxious to see what he looks like that he feels like his stomach’s about to fall out of his ass.  
  
Bev straightens the dress out a little and helps him into the heels—that, thank fucking god, he was able to practice walking in before tonight—and grins at him. “Okay, Rich! You can look now.”  
  
He puts his glasses back on and makes his way on nervous legs to the body length mirror by the door of their hotel room. The first thing he notices is his lips, which is weird, because he’s never found them particularly becoming. They’re just kind of there on his face, and modest-looking compared to his big nose and giant magnified eyes behind his glasses. Now, though, his lips are painted a deep burgundy color, and when he brings a hand up to touch his mouth, he notices his nails match, too.  
  
It’s really… weird, how Richie only sort of recognizes himself. Like, the shape of his face is still mostly there. It’s like trying to find his reflection in a fogged up mirror. He’s suddenly very glad he decided not to shave, because while he still doesn’t see his lips as _his_ , the stubble around them and along his cheeks and jaw is familiar enough. His eyes finally trail down to the rest of his outfit. He feels a secret little thrill at the way his chest hair looks, thick and sort of unruly, on full display in the deep, plunging neckline of the dress. The gray ones that Eddie teases him about even look sort of nice, like they just needed a nice little silk frame for them to look sort of sexy.  
  
Richie’s still just looking at this person in the mirror when Bev says, “Eddie just texted me, says he’ll be up in a minute.” She says it with a smirk, like she knows how he’s going to react to Richie’s getup. Richie knows how he _hopes_ Eddie will react. But then a very small, very stupid part of him feels like he’s about to lose his lunch.   
  
“It’s not too much, is it?” He asks Bev desperately. “I mean, I’m not even nominated for anything, it’s not like I’ll be going onstage. I’m just gonna _be_ there, at like, a fucking table in the back. I don’t need to look like… _this._ This is too much, I should change.”  
  
“Richie. Rich,” Bev reaches up to place her hands on his shoulders. “You look amazing. I mean, c’mon, do you really think I’d let you go out there if I thought otherwise?” Richie shakes his head, but his eyes are still wide as saucers with poorly disguised panic. “You can change if you really want to. I actually made you a suit as a backup, and I have it now, so you can wear that if it’ll make you more comfortable.”  
  
Richie flounders from all the mixed emotions, his jaw open but no words coming out. The lock on the hotel door beeps, and Eddie enters in a velvety, dark purple suit that he mistakes for black at first. It’s so perfectly tailored that it looks like an extension of his body. He makes a mental note to tip Bev extra for her work on this one.  
  
“Sorry, I wanted to come by earlier but Bev told me to—” Eddie stops dead in his tracks when he sees Richie, towering over him even more than usual. He can’t help it, he does a full body look from head to toe, his brain and mouth and dick getting all their wires crossed while he tries to piece together Richie’s whole look.   
  
“Leg,” Eddie says dumbly, looking at Richie’s right leg poking out from the side of the dress. It’s fully exposed, from his thick thighs to his ankles which lead down to _jesus Christ that’s why he’s so much taller_ a glittery pair of pumps.  
  
Richie chuckles above him and the sound gets Eddie to look up.  
  
“Bev told you to _leg_?” He teases, and Eddie knows he’s nervous from the way he’s trying to act like nothing is out of the ordinary.  
  
Eddie steps closer to touch his hip. The added height from Richie’s heels puts Eddie right at eye level with a delicious expanse of chest, and when he spots a few gray chest hairs he can’t even get his brain to work enough to tease him about it. The fabric of the dress is so smooth under his palms it’s almost hypnotizing. Eddie runs his hands up from Richie’s sides along the V of the front, over his pecs and up to his shoulders, then down his arms to squeeze his biceps.  
  
“You look…” Eddie trails off. He lets his hands fall down to hold Richie’s sweaty hands, but his eyes won’t stop moving, can’t stop looking at every inch of him. Richie feels embarrassed, so he decides he has to make a joke this second or he might die.  
  
“Like a really hairy Barbie doll?”  
  
“Mm, I was gonna say like a really sexy action figure, but sure.”  
  
Richie grins down at him and Eddie’s heart skips a beat at the way his teeth look within their lipstick frame. Eddie squeezes his hand, and then lifts Richie’s arm to get him to twirl around, which he does, sheepishly. He checks him out shamelessly and they all laugh when Bev wolf whistles from across the room.   
  
When Richie turns back to face him, he paws at the shoulders of Eddie’s suit. “You look so hot, what the fuck. Like, this purple _?_ I think Bev’s trying to kill me.” He whines, and Eddie rolls his eyes with a smile.   
  
“The purple was my idea when Bev told me you’d be in something more yellow.” Richie tilts his head in question at the way Eddie sounds embarrassed to talk about the colors of their clothes. Eddie sighs like he’s exasperated with him for not getting it. “They’re like, I dunno. Complementary colors, y’know? I wanted to make you look good. Well, better, anyway.”  
  
Richie sniffles a little and Bev jumps up at the sound.  
  
“Richie, you better not cry that makeup off!”  
  
“I’m not!” He yelps, and Eddie cracks up at the way Richie has to look at the ceiling to keep any tears from spilling. “But it’s Eddie’s fault!” He grabs Eddie’s cheeks to tilt his face up for a gentle kiss, because he doesn’t want his lipstick to smudge.  
  
“Okay, okay, we should get going soon.” Bev breaks them up but then directs them in a few poses so she can take pictures for Instagram.  
  
“Mom, can we go yet?” Richie sighs jokingly and taps his heel impatiently. Eddie sneaks his hand down from where it’s wrapped around his hip to squeeze at his ass, and Bev’s camera shutter clicks right as Richie gives him a scandalized look. He can’t wait to print out and frame a copy of that one.  
  
“Oh Richie, wait! I forgot your earrings…” Bev says, rummaging through her makeup bag. She procures a pair of long, dangly earrings in her palm. There’s a small arcade token hanging from them. “They’re clip-on, I know your ears aren’t actually pierced.”  
  
Richie takes them from her and clips them on, moves his head gently from side to side to see the way they swing and glow in the light. It makes him smile, and he feels like it makes his reflection more recognizable again.  
  
“Rich, you look _so_ pretty.” Eddie blurts out from behind him. They make eye contact in the mirror and they both blush at his words. “And handsome.” Eddie tries to save, but Richie just laughs and bumps him with an elbow. “You look pretty and handsome and hot and _sexy_ and I can’t wait to see everyone’s reactions tonight.”  
  
Richie smiles and pull him into a hug, mostly so Eddie doesn’t see him tear up again. “Thank you. And you’re gonna be some pretty sweet looking arm candy, too.” Eddie laughs into chest and the way his breath tickles against his bare skin feels so intimate it makes his heart ache.  
  
Bev lets them kiss _once_ before she touches up Richie’s lipstick and pushes them out the door so they can actually get to the event on time. It’s overwhelming, all of the lights and yelling and random workers telling him where and when to stand. But Eddie’s there the whole time to hold his hand, and his presence makes it manageable. Fun, even.   
  
Just as they’re about to finish taking photos, Eddie tugs Richie’s arm to bring his ear closer.  
  
“Do one on your own,” He says, meaning to whisper but even a regular volume is almost drowned out by all the photographers yelling around them. Richie looks at him like, _you sure?_ Eddie just smiles and nudges him forward.   
  
He’s temporarily blinded again by all the flashing lights, and while he gets his bearings he hears the faceless photographers start to yell his name.  
  
 _Richie! Richie, over here! You look gorgeous, give us a pose!_  
  
Richie glances over at Eddie, who mouths back _pose!_ with a little wink. He has no fucking idea what he’s doing, tries to rack his brain for any red carpet pictures he’s seen in his life but of course his brain comes up empty. He puts a hand on his hip. Pops his leg out so the slit on the side of the dress rides up his thigh and shows off his heels. Tilts his chin up and brings one hand to rest on the hinge of his jaw. The photographers seem to love it, the loud clicking of a million different shutters almost drowning out their praise and cheers.   
  
Richie holds the pose for a second, hoping to god he looks more elegant than haughty. He _feels_ elegant, at least, and that’s definitely a first. He finally drops it, makes a goofy cross-eyed face at the photographers before turning away to rejoin Eddie.  
  
“How was that?” Richie asks him. His knees are shaking a little bit, and he holds onto Eddie’s elbow a little tighter as they make their way into the venue.  
  
“It was perfect, Rich. You’re so brave.”  
  
Richie tuts at him. He doesn’t know how to say what he’s actually thinking—that it’s always been Eddie that’s made him brave. So instead, he asks wetly, “Now that Beverly isn’t here, am I allowed to cry in this makeup?”  
  
“No. She’d kill me, and then I wouldn’t get the chance to make out with you in this dress. And other things.” Eddie says, the tips of his ears blushing bright red.  
  
Richie laughs as they sit down at their table. Not quite in the very back as he’d expected, but they’re definitely not up front with the cool kids. It doesn’t bother him anyway, he’s always liked sitting with the losers.  
  
“Sorry, Eds. Bev told me this is a no sex allowed dress.”  
  
“God, she’s taking all the fun out of this night!”   
  
Richie laughs so hard he snorts, which makes Eddie laugh, and even as the lights go down and the host comes onstage, they spend most of the night trying to stifle their shared laughter.


End file.
